Black Widow
by jenskott
Summary: Mourning not only is about grief. It's also about rage.


Black Widow

Author: Jenskott

Summary: Mourning not only is about grief. It's also about rage.

Notes: This is a very sad story, based mainly in the comic continuity but with my own twists. Obviously it has nothing to do with the current Spider-Man books, but it uses many references of the old issues.

This is the second version of this story. Macbeth2001, whom I thank deeply his invaluable help, checked and corrected the first one. Thanks you!

Rating: G.

Disclaimer: Now is when I must say those characters aren't mine but they belong to Marvel, right? Ha, I'm not saying it. Go ahead, sue me. See if it gets you SOMETHING other than wasting time.

Feedback: To English isn't my primary language so if someone sees a mistake, tell me it, please. Or write only to tell me if it was good or sucked. Feedback is good and tasty.

A radiant sun shone amber on the sky of pure blue. No cloud, billow, or tendril of mist overcast the sky.

Mary Jane looked upwards, feeling the glistening sunrays dazzling her, and covered her gorgeous face with one lean and weathered hand. Warmth was spreading throughout her entire body.

She hated it. She hated the heat warming her body, she hated the gleaming sun, she hated the glorious azure sky, she hated the mirthful birds' chirping, and she hated the bright green lawn, with its blades neatly trimmed, that her expensive high-heeled shoes were treading on.

The beauty of that vernal weather was not only wildly improper but also revolting and outraging, and if shewere in touch with Thor or Storm, she would call them to correct that... travesty. How could the climate be so mild and mellow? The sky should be shadowed with pitch-dark stormclouds, cloaking the world in deep darkness, split by forks of lightning. A frosty and hard rain should be falling and flooding the earth, wrapping it in a dense curtain of gloomy haze.

She loathed that cursed weather, encouraging to people to be happy, and that damned sun, getting her warm when she wished to remain gelid as a chunk of glacier.

Her green and piercing eyes read again the name carved on the grey tombstone. Peter Parker.

Relief flooded her. She was feeling again her heart hardening in a block of arctic ice within her ribcage.

She watched again the headstone of hard and cold marble, rectangular and gaudy, feeling lonelier than ever in her lifetime. Not even when her parents had split up and her mother had passed away had she felt that awful, choking grief. That unbearable loneliness. Oh, of course, there were friends behind her, mourning with her, but she dismissed them. She didn't want to talk with them and hear puny condolence phrases, rehashing the stereotypical words everyone says and repeats at each funeral.

However, as annoying and pestering as that kindness felt to her, it was good-natured and well meaning. She respected that. However, the crowd was pressed together around the rusty fence of the graveyard, waving pens and notebooks, cameras and recorders, video cameras and loudspeakers... she abhorred them with fervor. Meddlesome nuisances, bloodsucking vampires, profiteer hyenas, carrion-eating vultures...

The tingle itching in the corners of her eyes returned yet again, and she wiped her face furiously, actually reddened and stinging from rubbing tears too many times. She wouldn't cry, weep or sob in front of that mob. She stood still and daring, staring at her husband's grave with glazed and unblinking eyes, raising her chin to show off proudly her dried face and the eyes with purple bags beneath them. They were telltale signs of the several preceding nights she had spent sleepless, sobbing her heart out bitterly, and she sported those marks with pride.

She knew one day would come when Peter wouldn't be good enough or fast enough or skillful enough, when the lifestyle he led would kill him, but she had dared to pray for it never happening. But she prayed to God, and Norman Osborn was, rather, a goblin… a demon. At the end, Peter had sacrificed to himself to save her from that monster. He had forfeited his life without hesitation so she lived, and the Green Goblin went straight to Hell, where he belonged. She hoped he burnt forever.

Unfortunately, in the aftermath of the battle, the world had finally found out Spider-Man's identity. Due to that, reporters and photographers were prowling outside the gates, waiting for a chance to harass Spider-Man's wife. Mary Jane was aware that if Peter's secret had remained hidden, the headlines would be 'The famous model Mary Jane Watson's husband dies'. But it wasn't like that, and they were 'Spider-Man Dead: Identity Unmasked' instead. Peter, her Peter, meant nothing at all to them.

So she hated them with a passion. And she displayed her signs of ache and grief and sorrow with pride, because they showed she cared for him, unlike them.

Suddenly, the mourners that had given her a respectfully wide berth so far approached her. Well, here we go, she sighed inwardly, feeling a heavy burden on her bleeding chest. She wasn't ready to deal with this.

Betty Brant laid a hesitant, tentative hand on her shoulder and squeezed lightly, trying to be reassuring at the same time as drawing her attention. "Mary Jane, I-"

"Please, Betty," she cut off brusquely. "I understand your intentions are good, but spare me from the typical statement about how awfully sorry you are, and how you know what it feels like..."

She shook her head vehemently. "But I do. Don't give me that face, Mary Jane. I also loved Peter once upon a time. And I'm a widow likewise." She grimaced, painfully recalledNed and breathed deeply. "I went through this back then. I felt my world was shattered, and the pieces would cut me if I tried picking them up. So I shut everybody out and made up a lie to not remember the grief and the pain. I almost went crazy..." She sighed. "If Flash hadn't me forced to snap out of it... I know you want to be left alone, but you can't do it. Believe me, I know. MJ, if you... if you need to talk to someone who will listen to you, or only a friend to keep you company..."

"I'll think about it, Betty. Thank you," Mary Jane replied with a fluid and blank voice, not really certain that she'd take up her offer. Suddenly, she felt a strange impulse, and hugged Betty warmly. The pain was partially eased.

"Do you know? It's funny," the brunette secretary mumbled in her ear. "I often wondered what stuff he was keeping back from me, why he broke off our relationship... It's likely if I had known the truth, I couldn't bring to myself to believe it."

"Maybe," Mary Jane mumbled with a faint string of voice, and wrenched away from Betty's embrace. She didn't want recalling or thinking. She walked away slowly and ran into Felicia.

The infamous cat burglar seemed just as grief-stricken and distraught as herself, clad in a black outfit, with her platinum-blonde hair braided in a long ponytail. Her fingers fidgeted apprehensively with it, but that agitation was the only remarkable sign of the distress she was enduring.

"Why are you running away, Mary Jane?" she questioned softly. A sad smile split her face.

"No. I'm not-"

"It's been a long while without us seeing each other. I wish the circumstances were better ones, and I'd be able to talk to Pete, or have saved him, but... This is the only helpful thing I can think of."

She lunged at Mary Jane and draped her arms around her neck, squeezing her strongly. Mary Jane felt her resolve, her determination, cold and unfeeling and tough as steel, crumbling and dissolving. She clung tightly to the Black Cat, sobbing quietly, with silent weeps.

Finally she disengaged from Felicia Hardy with less hostility than she used with Betty, and dried gingerly the tears that had traced wet trails along her cheeks. At the end she hadn't been able to restrain herself.

Off-handedly she noticed two figures approaching to her. One was nice and inspired assurance, but another swept away the elation she had felt thanks to Felicia. The relief she wouldn't allow her soul to have.

"Mary Jane," the owner of the Daily Bugle, the big metropolitan newspaper, opened his mouth warily. However he stayed quiet, unsure of the right words that the situation required. For first time in his life, J. Jonah Jameson was wordless. And so he remained, with his mouth gaping while the acrid smoke from his cigar drew rivulets on the air. "I... am very sorry for Parker... Peter. I wouldn't confess it aloud to his face, but he was one of my best photographers and I'll miss him awfully. Every one of us shall."

She lifted her chin slowly upwards. "Oh, yes?" Her voice, barely a croaked and eerie murmur, was so hoarse and her eyes so haunted and lightless it gave chills. Suddenly a green spark flared in those verdant orbs. "Why do I highly doubt that, Jonah? Perhaps this is what you wanted from the first?"

That was petty. Truly mean and cruel. However her temper had snapped with Jameson's words, and stomped gleefully on her scruples. She wasn't willingly bearing his hypocrisy, and that phrase had blown up her fragile control. Words flowed out of her mouth like a stream that had just broken the dam that was containing it.

"You brought about his firing when he was a stunt performer on a TV show," she hissed. "You made sure he was feared, hated, insulted, hunted, beaten and mistreated. You accused him of being Electro, Octopus, Sandman and I don't know how many more. You financed experiments that created menaces like Scorpion or the Fly, used killer robots and paid mercenaries or even villains. You chased him time and again, relentlessly and unceasingly to satisfy your paranoid revenge."

"He saved your son, and you kept chasing him. He saved you from Scorpion and Kingpin, and you kept chasing him. He saved you, your wife, your friends, your loved ones, time and again, and you kept chasing him. He saved to people from a fire and you accused him of being an arsonist. He was injured trapping criminals and you yelled that he was in cahoots with them. He was severely beaten while stopping one of his foes from stealing something, and you assured everyone that they were partners. Another of his enemies killed someone close to him, and you accused him of the murder. One spider bit you and you laid the blame on him. He walked by on the street and you said he tried frightening the pedestrians."

"You invented accusations of thievery, assassination, rape and whatever crime you could think of. You denied or dismissed any proof that pointed to his innocence or twisted the facts to jam them into your biased, tiny worldview. You wished someone would beat him, squash him and get rid of him for you. Congratulations, you have got your wish. I hope it was worth it; what a true shame it would be if such an effort was for nothing."

"I'm fed up withthis! Did you believe you knew him? Did you believe you were so smart and enlightened? You sanctimonious, self-righteous... You never knew anything about Spider-Man! You never understood anything! Nobody did! Nobody cared who he was or why he wore spandex or battled nut criminals! You and everyone only cared for your own bigoted ideas! Did you ever think sometime that there was a human being behind that mask? I doubt you did. None of you knows a damned thing about the man I loved! Nobody knew Peter like I did!"

Mary Jane saw Jameson gaping and closing his mouth like a fish, watched the upset countenance of his blanched face, and grinned savagely. But having made it, she felt an immense shame and regret. As far as she was concerned he had deserved those words for a long time, he deserved someone rubbing that in his rugged and bad-tempered face, but even so... she turned around slowly. This time her words were bleak instead of angry ones.

"You didn't think he might turn out to be someone who you knew personally, did you? Someone who worked to earn his salary, who had family, a wife, children, friends, people who loved him... Someone as human and down-to-earth as you or me, not some disguised monster. And now he's dead and I must move on for our little girl, who now needs me more than ever. If she wasn't here, I wish that monster had killed me alongside Pete, so I could be with my husband. Of course that can happen anyway, since now his enemies know who he was, the lives of the ones he loved are worth nothing. THAT is why costumed vigilantes don't reveal their secret identities, Jonah."

She didn't comment on the several heroes -Johnny Storm or Captain America- and the three major super-heroic groups that had sent their regrets, and the several women -Phoenix, Scarlet Witch, Elektra- that had scrabbled and slipped in her purse a phone number only in case she needed counsel.

Meanwhile Joe Robertson had been scratching his chin, thoughtful despite his worrying. "Perhaps you can help to correct that wrong, Mary Jane."

She eyed him in puzzlement. "What do you mean, Robbie?"

He held firmly his brown pipe, steaming with tobacco, as he spoke. "You have complained about Peter and the way he was misunderstood and abused. About how nobody knew him really. Maybe you can shed some light on the matter, and stop that injustice by relating HOW he was. Perhaps so everyone would know and understand."

Mary Jane scrutinized him attentively. His rich voice rang kind and reassuring, and the proposal was appealing, but... "Robbie, I... I know you mean well, but I don't believe I'm really willing to see the innermost details of my and Peter's life spread in a newspaper."

Robbie regarded her attentively, and sighed. Striding towards her he laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "I understand it perfectly, Mary Jane. But besides being a reporter, I'm a friend of yours too, or so I'd like to think. If you only need to speak with someone privately..."

MJ nodded. Talk? Why not? She knew he'd want to talk. After all, today everybody wanted to talk with her. "I'll think about it, Robbie. Thanks very much. And you were always a good friend."

And she walked away slowly.

Her mood was sinking gradually, threatening to make her burst into tears, and she couldn't bear the idea of another public display. She left Jameson, without seeing his wife, Marla, who had reached out for her, but having missed her, was snuggling soothingly to the glum and pained Jonah. It was lucky, since perhaps she wouldn't have been able to keep her act together with the painful remembrances that picture would bring up.

Damn it, she wouldn't break down, she wouldn't break down, she wouldn't break down...

A soft and silky piece of cloth stroked her dampened cheeks suddenly. Aunt May. In front of her, cleaning her face softly with a handkerchief. Mary Jane thought idly that her intense tears had smeared her carefully done makeup. Ask her if she cared.

The old and scrawny woman was regarding her with a smile that blended bleakness and tenderness alike, as if she knew exactly what was going on in her mind. "Mary Jane, why don't you leave the burial and return to your home?"

Mary Jane gasped, aghast. "Leave the burial? B-but Aunt May, I can't-"

"Why not?" she grinned broadly. "I remember when Ben died. I figure you now need to be alone in private for healing, rather than listening to boring platitudes. Fetch the baby, go away, and rest in your apartment. I'll call you later on. If the attendants don't understand why you did it, it's their trouble; no yours."

Showing wisdom acquired through years, Aunt May gave to her redheaded and stubborn niece-in-law a look full of sorrow and warm understanding she knew she needed. "T-thanks, Aunt May. I'll... see you later."

"Don't mention it, dear."

Mary Jane nodded and strode hastily towards another of the attendants, a woman around her age, with long blond curls. One of her hands was linked to one little boy, roughly six years old, and another rocked a baby stroller peacefully. In spite of the way her hand shook, she was swinging the makeshift crib steadily.

"Please, hand me back the stroller, Liz. We're going back home. I can't keep a composed façade anymore."

Liz Osborn stopped moving the stroller and grasped softly, awkwardly, Mary Jane's hand. She felt a sudden chill, a shudder, a tingle crawling under her spotless skin. Her muscles clenched and she freed her fingers with a yank, letting go of the other hand with repugnance. Like if a slippery snake had bitten her.

"Let me go!" she screamed. "You are one of them..."

Barely born, the angry snarl died in her lips when she realized the way she'd just treated one old good friend, like a poisonous vermin who had tried harming her. Lashing out at her for offenses she never committed, spitting on her friendship.

She buried her face in her quivering hands, too ashamed to look straight at her. "Liz, I'm sorry. Forgive me, I should never have snapped at you like that. But I'm so distressed. My God, Liz, I'm sorry."

Liz's countenance had turned progressively glummer and more crestfallen, but the last muttered apologies softened her expression. She tried smiling, but she only managed a sad quirk of her lips. "Never mind, Mary Jane. I know this must upset you a lot. You have every right to be angry."

"But not to vent at you. Peter never blamed Harry for what his father did to Gwen. You have no fault in this, but my nerves are utterly shot. Each time I see someone happy and smiling I feel like chewing his or her head off. I want screaming in pain, shouting in frustration, seething in rage, whatever can lift the feeling of a rock oppressing me within my chest. But your family isn't responsible for this. You have never done me any harm, and Harry was a good, honest boy who was poisoned by his evil father. But, deep down, he was a nice person. I ought to know, after all."

Liz giggled warily. "You dated with him for a while. It's ironic, I fell hard for Peter in High School, but never pursued him until he started to date Miss Brant."

Mary Jane beamed beatifically. Amazing. She kept in reserve some smiles. "I remember that time Betty and you stormed into his house when I was visiting. The glares you shot me could melt steel."

"Right," she said shortly. "But can you blame us for getting jealous, knowing who won the race?"

Mary Jane mustered her last shreds of a pleasant mood for smiling, and pushed the stroller towards the gravel path, being very cautious in every moment to not startle her young baby and wake her up. It was good to have a friend like Liz Allen. She'd lost Harry to the Green Goblin's curse, but at least she retained her son. She hoped May would support her and give her strength for moving on likewise.

She smoothly swerved the buggy along the sinuous carpet of pebbles, looking forward to lounging in the peace and silence of her apartment, now too wide and quiet. Her reverie though was cut off when she saw the swarm of reporters clogging up the iron gates, and she shuddered with the very thought of having to cross through that sea of greedy and inquisitive faces.

Abruptly one hand, large and rough but gentle, patted her shoulder with a slight squeeze. She tilted her neck a fraction, spotting a severe but benevolent face framed by auburn, cropped hair. Flash Thompson.

"Are those dorks bothering you, MJ? I can get them out of the way if you want."

"It... would be very nice of you, Flash. I'm not ready to put up with them and their pesky questions. Thanks."

"Don't mention it." The swaggering ex-football player beat his pectorals flippantly, grinning broadly. "It's what Peter would have wanted me to do after all. Let's go."

Flash spun around, and grinning predatorily, lunged at the mob resembling a lion pouncing on its defenseless prey, and just like his times as a star player he punched, kicked, elbowed and shoved roughly each newshound and photographer dumb enough to come near. In a few seconds the sea of people had parted swiftly, and they had cleared off a free path. With a smile of gratitude drawn on her red lips, Mary Jane rolled the stroller along the route Flash had kindly traced.

Finally they reached the car Mary Jane had driven. It was dashing, aerodynamic, and glossy crimson. While Flash pushed back rudely and harshly to the interviewers, she folded the stroller and laid May in the babysat, fastening firmly the belt. Despite all of the ruckus and the brusque motions, the toddler was snoozing, deeply asleep. Her lips, lightly ajar, let out air gusts that tickled her mom's nose. Mary Jane paused, regarding thoughtfully the slumbering face of her diminutive child, so peaceful, so unaware, so innocent. And while she got in the car, she thanked inwardly that May didn't hold memory of that day.

While she turned her shining keys in the ignition to start the engine, her bright emerald eyes spared a glance at Flash Thompson.

"Thanks for everything, Flash!" she called aloud. "See you later."

"Good-bye, MJ," he answered.

With a nod she stomped the accelerator, and her car rushed out of the parking lot, shrouded in a cloud of hot and acrid smoke.

However, it didn't matter how quickly she ran away. The memories were faster and would catch up to her.

End


End file.
